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2018 America's First Protest
The America's First Protest was an extrajudicial, originally peaceful protest that was held in Cantersfield, Armonia triggered by the United States recognising Armonia as a national entity on the same day on July 20th, 2018. 200,000 Republicans and Conservatives travelled from the Northeast of the United States to Cantersfield via ACER trains and ARFerries, effectively shutting down international transportation and made the protest the largest in Armonian history. It was also the first major protest to ever occur in the country against the government, and the first to turn violent, prompting the first test of Canter Aperture Industry's crowd dispersal techniques. Timeline On July 20th 2018, at 8am, the Congress of the United States official recognised Armonia as a foreign entity after several years of disputed territorial claim and years of inter-nation cooperation. At around 10am EST, ARdefense and Canter Aperture were alerted that a large wave of people from all around the Northeast had been rallied via social media to gather up in Cantersfield and protest in the heart of The Capitol. The original estimate for protesters was 40,000 people but that quickly increased later in the day. ARdefense and Capitol Command were closely monitoring the situation but were originally not concerned. At 11am, the first thousands of protests arrived in Armonia via ACER trains and began directly protesting outside of The Spire. By 12pm the number of protestors had increased from 10,000 to 40,000, and the new incoming estimate was 75,000. Traffic began to halt on Washington Street and roadblocks were set up to divert traffic. Public transportation continued to operate unaffected, but complaints were made by non-protesting passengers on ACER trains by the loud chanting on board. By 1:30pm there were over 60,000 and the new incoming estimate was over 100,000. ACER trains, required by law to operate at maximum service capacity, had all available train-sets running along all lines. Armonian federal law mandates that ACER keeps an appropriate ratio for peak spikes in train travel, and also was unable to halt ACER services since they legally could not disrupt to protest until it became violent. The protest continued to get more and more aggressive, as Armonian citizens and Canter Aperture employees were verbally abused while walking the streets or while using public transportation. At 1:45pm, James Houlahan alerted Canter Aperture employees working in The Spire and in other buildings in Ailer that the protest continued to grow, and that if it was not dispersed by the end of the workday at 5pm that they would be required to do an evacuation of the National Headquarters Complex using the HoloZip system in order to ensure their safety. He then made a national announcement to Armonia telling citizens and tourists not to come to Ailer as it was no long safe. The protest continued to grow throughout the day but did not get violent, and so legally it could continue. At 5:00pm, the number of protestors was estimated at close to 200,000 almost completely taking up all available surface space in Ailer. At this point, Canter Aperture employees were evacuated to safety from buildings via HoloZip to West Capitol, East Capitol, and Ardenton, or through underground tunnels if they had cars. Above ground off-ramp and on-ramps to R21 were closed off. Capitol light rail was forced to stop operating, with one car filled with passengers getting trapped surrounded by protestors on a street. At 8:00pm two situations occured simultaneously that then deemed the protest illegal. - CAX emps trying to leave after being hunkered down for hours, and light rail attacked. - protest had 200,000 ppl from US - criticised for protesting in ailer and not in ardenton